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Laptop computers
are an irresistible target for criminals, resulting in hundreds of thousands of
thefts and millions of electronic intrusions causing billions of dollars in
losses. The majority of these computers run the Microsoft XP operating system,
which, although containing many security enhancements over its predecessors, is
nonetheless frequently compromised.
Microsoft boasts
that its new operating system, Windows®
Vista™,
is significantly more effective at protecting computers, especially laptops.
What follows is an examination of the failings of Windows XP and the new and
improved features of Windows Vista.
A recent SANS Newsletter cited securing laptops as the top challenge in the
years ahead. [1] The importance of laptop
security, both in homes and businesses, is overshadowing all other security
concerns because:
·The
percentage of laptops to desktops sold is escalating from less than 20% in 2002
to an estimated 50% in 2007. [2]
·
Laptops are portable, easily concealed, and are often left in areas where
potential thieves have easy access.
·The
average laptop is more expensive than the average desktop.[2]
·
Sensitive
data is often contained on the hard drive to facilitate working without the base
network. Here is an illustration from Information Security Magazine: “It's
been more than a year since an unattended laptop disappeared from the U.S.
Department of State's Washington, D.C., headquarters. Two top-level
administrators were fired and four others received career-ending reprimands for
losing a notebook computer that contained sensitive nuclear weapons
proliferation data. Despite an intensive investigation and a $25,000 reward, the
FBIhas been unable to recover
the missing laptop.” [3]
·
Laptops often access outside networks, such as the Internet, using Wi-Fi and cell technologies that are less
secure than an attached private network.
·
Sophisticated thieves are able to extract credentials from stolen laptops
allowing them to access private networks and find and use information to enable
identity theft, corporate espionage and other lucrative illegal schemes.
Wondering about the meaning of such strange words as
"Avalon", "WiMedia",
"UWB", "ZigBee", "WiMax", "SOA", "Itanium®", "Vista®", "Big Water/BTX", "Indigo", "Centrino®",
"WiFi", "IPv6", "UPnP", or "Sparkle"? Click here and we will tell you.
June 30, 2001. Our first publication was called "User's Manual" and began publication in 1990, typeset using Xerox Ventura for DOS, and distributed on PAPER, if you can believe it. Especially interesting is the report on COMDEX in the March 1991 issue.
November - A Good Time to be in Las Vegas. Check the upcoming events and you will see that the Nevada gambling capital is also the computer hot spot in the 11th month. Attend the IBM eServer conference on the 5th through the 7th at the Rio, then come back for COMDEX at the Convention Center and Computer Digital Expo Conference & Expo at the Mandalay Bay, both starting on the 17th. For the first time in years Bill Gates and Scott McNeely will both be presenting keynotes at COMDEX, assuming Mr. McNeely retains his position until then.
In a move carefully calculated to hasten the demise of the industry they are paid to protect, the RIAA
(Recording Industry Association of America) has filed suit against hundreds of
the industry's customers, or at least the person who lives at the address of a computer that was allegedly used to infringe upon the intellectual property rights of the artists controlled by industry companies. There are rumors that SCO is behind this entire campaign, with no factual substantiation at press time.
The Job Market is Still Extremely Soft. While warm and fuzzy predictions continue to emanate from diverse quarters, jobs and contracts are still scarce, and compensation is way down, with many IT professionals making as little as a third of what they made 5 years ago. Many more are not working at all.
In the Tradition of SCO...
Hey, Windows Notepad works exactly like a piece
of software we wrote in 1982, so everyone who is using Windows send us $1,000
for a run-time license or we're going to sue you. Just kidding, it's actually $699.
SPAM is no joke!
In spite of the spate of articles in print and comic references to SPAM on the broadcast media, it is one of the most serious problems, not to mention financial threats in the world today, to both businesses and individuals. Here is our attempt to help with the Personal Spam Survival Guide, to be followed by the Business SPAM Survival Guide coming soon.
(With apologies to Lewis Carroll and Paul Simon:)" Beware the Jubjub bird, and shunthe frumious Avanade!" or "Arthur Andersen and Microsoft - Still Sneaky After All These Years"Arthur Anderson has been the author of a festering wound in the exposed flank of the IT industry since the day, lo, those many years ago, when they decided that it would be a good idea to use their influence as a government sanctioned pseudo-monopoly to encourage their clients to also contract with their newly-created, wholly-owned subsidiary Andersen Consulting, for all of their computer needs...(click for the rest of the story).
Novell is buying SUSE, a German Linux distributor for $210 million in cash. SUSE's version of the popular operating system is the one used by IBM on its hardware platforms. Not coincidentally, IBM announced it was investing $50 million in Novell and pledged to continue supporting SUSE Linux.
The Internet Access Tax Ban expired on October 31st,
while Congress debated expanding it and making it permanent over the objections
of many of the states'' governors. The door is now open for the states to impose taxes on Internet connections unless and until Congress gets their act together and prevents local governments from taxing the Internet out of existence.
The Federal Government is finally starting to encourage contractors to supply secure solutions in response to government bids. The Department of Energy just announced a deal with Oracle to provide secure database products, as well as updates that will not compromise security by resetting configurations.
What is the future of Linux? The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) thinks they should be compensated as if they wrote all of Linux from scratch because a few snippets of code they bought may have accidentally found their way into the current or previous versions of Linux. While this seems absolutely unwarranted and totally insane, SCO is suing IBM for billions and has actually collected license fees from corporations, Microsoft among them.
Another Reason to Buy a PDA? Play full-length Hollywood movies on your Pocket PC or Palm? It sounds like a recipe for eye strain to me, but the Pocket PC Films™ subsidiary of Tunein Entertainment, LLC is betting that PDA owners can’t resist the concept. Along with movies, Tunein also stocks “high quality business multi-media programming”, and TV episodes, for a total of over 25,000 titles available for downloading or distribution via CDROM (so, that’s all the “I Love Lucy” episodes and about 5 other programs, right?). Prices are reasonable, from $9.99 to $19.99, so there’s no reason you can’t ride the bus and watch your favorite episode of Grizzly Adams at the same time.
"You are a great computer journalist!" Craig Wood, West Region Practice Leader, Avanade, Inc., to Editor-In-Chief of FreshBaked.com®, Greg Hill.
On January 22nd, 2002, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued Registration number 2,532,213 to FreshBaked.com as a registered trademark in U.S. classes 100 and 101, international class 42.
October 19, 2004. Its over now, so you cant visit, but its just as well. The 2004 Denver Parade of Homes demonstrated that the importance of technology to homebuilders, if not home buyers, continues to decline. Apparently the trend toward incorporating technology in homes peaked about five years ago and has been waning ever since. Back then, at the Parade of Homes, every house came with a central console built into a wall that could be used to control lights, temperature, and security in every room, both locally and remotely.
These days, the builders idea of high tech is a built-in cappuccino machine and a data port in most rooms. Some of the homes provided a neat rack system in the basement where the wires from the ports could be easily connected to various devices, including hubs, routers, cable TV, etc. I checked to see if the cappuccino machine was networked, but there were no labels on the box.
Unfortunately, not much thought was put into the design or placement of the ports. They were all the ivory plastic, 4 port design, with two coax ports and two RJ-45 jacks labeled "Data" and "Voice". Placement was apparently random, seemingly in the exact wrong place in every room in all of the show homes. When a computer or television is set up in these rooms, a cable invariably has to be run halfway around the walls and across the floor.
There were no computerized control panels in evidence to signify centralized monitoring of environment, security, sound, or lighting. At least one of the houses did have a sophisticated lighting system involving panels that controlled several different lights at once. In previous years, lcd panels were used to avoid the cluttered multi-switch boxes and also allowed security and other functions.
Most of the houses had fairly sophisticated entertainment systems with projectors or plasma monitors and lots of expensive
DVD and cd players, but no advanced connectivity or other features to show that they have evolved since home shows of 10 or even 15 years ago.
We have no idea why the people who build these million dollar plus homes
don't choose to engineer-in any sophisticated technology. Is it because the purchasers of these homes
don't want it, or that the builders are driving these decisions? Maybe today's architects are not keeping up with advances in the high-tech world.
Any affluent technophile would want Cat 5e Gigabit wiring in every room, at least, probably with a fiber optic backbone to allow for video streaming. There must be a unified cabling system to do away with those kludgy looking coaxial jacks. We always expect to see futuristic features in these expensive homes, including video cameras to monitor the interior and exterior, complete control of door locks, lights, heating and cooling, and access to video and audio programming in every room. Instead, we see a lot of electric gadgets that are all flash and little utility, such as electric screens and shutters, the aforementioned cappuccino machines, lots of huge flat panel monitors with no hint of program sources, lots of high intensity lights, and seeming thoughtless design. At the rate the builders are incorporating technology into homes, they will never even get to the level of
Disney's Tomorrowland of the 1950s.
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